Alright, I am looking for a definitive answer about EMT Conduit. What size is the right size. My experience with playa tech is that some people go over kill with things, AKA 16" Lag bolts to hold a monkey hut down.
Keeping in mind that bigger is always better, what is the smallest Conduit I should feel comfortable using to construct shade structures around camp? I will be buying footies and corners and attaching ratchet straps to 10" lag bolts for tie downs. Can I get away with 1/2" no problem or do I need to shell out the $8 a pipe for 1".

I'd go with 1" Haven't heard of any failures of 1" structures and hearing of a number of failures with tubing smaller than that. In the future you could scale up the area of the shade confidently with 1" tubing. I would use 14" lag bolts minimum being that many years the top 6" of playa has no holding power to speak of.

Seeing as how you have nothing, go with 1". It's proven, 3/4" is sketchy & 1/2" is flat crazy & a waste of money.
And IF you decide to sell it all, you're not left with smaller gear that no one wants or can use with their existing 1" fitting setup....... that everbody uses....... on the Playa.....

With 14" lags......

2nd time better than the first. And the first was pretty Freakin' Great!
I am Camp2.- A solo camp - Stop by and say Hey!, Gotta beer?

If you are another Solo Burner & very 'Radically Self Reliant' - Maybe we can 'Do What We Do!'

Holy shit! It's like $8 for a 10-foot pipe of 1" conduit. How ever will anyone afford that? That 1" conduit is not expensive, and the biggest pain with any conduit is the length of it -- which is the same regardless of the pipe diameter. Just get your 1" conduit and be done with it. When you're trying to get a last wink of sleep on the playa at 10 AM, you might think "oh hey, I wish I had spent those few extra dollars to make my $425-just-to-attend trip sleepable."

That, or just buy a damned carport. They're like $225 or something. How much does that compute to compared to being in a ratty motel? Four nights?

People buy the 14" because they're sold as inexpensive (PER BOLT) 50x packs on Amazon or Fastener Superstore. Yeah you can go around buying even 12" bolts for like $1.50, but why bother when you can get a 50x pack for like $70 shipped or something. Share them with friends if you need to spread the cost around.

No, not everyone is made of money, but you're going to some ridiculous party in the desert and paying for the benefit. Why are you cheaping out on the important thing in life like having some comfort while you're trying to sleep? It's not like you're paying to make a yurt or something.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

I started this thread to try and have a conversation about IF 1/2 inch is a viable option. I have been bringing large structures to playa since I started in 2013, so transportation isn't a problem because I know how to plan. And how long things are.
I'm not asking about pipe because I need to cover my tent to sleep in a few extra hours, I am asking about pipe to build shade for a theme camp I run because I have this crazy idea that when other Burners show up to look at our art piece they may just want to get out of the sun.
I understand that $8 a pipe isn't a lot of money, but if you are buying 20 of them it turns out $8 a pipe versus $2.50 a pipe is a difference of $110.
I am curious to hear more about these 1/2" destruction stories. What happened exactly? What was the structure that was destroyed? Flat top, tarp covers? Or did they have shade cloth? What failed in the structure? Was it the pipe itself?

I understand that I am playing with fire a bit in suggesting it, but I wanted to hear from seasoned burners about what they think will work. And if it won't work why, not just the same stuff others have simply read on eplaya.
Everyone on playa said that rebar was the only thing that worked.
Now we have lag bolts.
Everyone on playa says 1" is the minimum.
I just read a post about a camp that drives 300 3/4" conduit 10" into the ground instead of driving rebar for it.

What I am getting at is change. (SCARY!!!?!?!?!) Is 1/2" a change that people could get behind, because if you are ol' 300 conduit guy it is a difference of $1650. Which is 16 people worth of camp dues.

You know what's a "lot" of money? Your $2.50 pole buckling under a gust and falling into your buddy's "cheap" $120 camping tent set up downwind from you. Or your flimsy shade flying apart and scratching the paint job of the 2006 Ford Explorer a neighbor is using as a wind-block. Or maybe the damn thing collapses on itself and injures a napping friend lounging under it after a long night of dancing. Good thing the pipes are so light and flimsy right? Or maybe your structure just ends up wrecking the shade cloth itself, tearing holes in it, needing replacement.

It may be that none of that happens at all, but now you're using some thin-walled flimsy shade and every time you hear it rattle and moan under the slightest breeze you feel compelled to leap out of your tent or camping chair to make sure the thing isn't going to come crashing down. It gets so sketchy that you decide to just collapse the structure so that you can actually take a stroll in the city with some peace of mind.

What did that $110 savings actually net you? That's like half a carport worth of pipes, and I can only imagine how many people 20x poles would be servicing to spread around the cost for a $160 structure.

And yeah, they do buckle and break. My dad tried setting up some shade with 1/2" EMT and white shade cloth over windows at his house like an awning, only further out. They worked fine until there was a somewhat breezy day and the shade cloth caught a gust, causing the EMT to bend. Fortunately, only the pipe got bent up, and nothing else broke. The small EMT is just way too flimsy to hold up under stress.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

I have 3/4 emt for my flat tops which has held up for three years ok. - BUT if I would do it again would use 1". I had the 3/4 from another fest so added to it for BM. No way would I use 1/2. My opinion is 3/4 is the minimum.

I like a safety factor and so that is why I recommend 1". Additionally for what it's worth I think the 1" EMT is more resilient than 1x1x1/8" square tubing. I could be wrong...I'm not a physicist or structural engineer. My original shade that I still bring is made out of square tubing and that was way more expensive of a frame than the EMT frames. The galvanizing on EMT is nice too. All my newer shades are the 1" conduit variety and I even have one that is 10' tall. It acts remarkably different than my 7' tall shades. All this for what it's worth. Thanks for all the coffee 2 years ago! Much appreciated! Motz, Black Rock City Welding & Repair.

I bumped this because I went to HD today and the 1" EMT is up to $9.90 a stick. I want to do some structures around the house. I wondered what the price was in different years. I googled "historical prices of EMT" and this was about the fifth thing there. I wonder if those tariffs figure into it. I'll just bite the bullet and buy what I need.

You can apply any terms to any situation to rationalize bias or perspective.

Yikes, it looks like the price has jumped up a bit on the 1" EMT. Maybe you could check out the flea markets in your area, they use the same stuff for their shade structures. You might find some cheaper stuff or even some used EMT there. It don't have to be pretty, it's just has to work.

Life's a bitch, then you go to Burning Man - Unjonharley
We welcome the stranger, but that doesn't mean we have to like them, nor they us, and that's alright. - AntiM

It is steel tubing most often using lower grade (cheap) imported steel... of course tariffs are a factor. Since it's also one of those bulk raw materials items that's often sold very close to (or even sometimes below) cost, there isn't any room for a merchant to just absorb those kinds of hits.

The size matters much less than the type of structure. There are so many different things you can build out of conduit. geodesic dome? carport style structure? flat-top grid-of-conduit-squares? tipis? There's no single answer to what size of conduit you need for every possible use, and there never will be.

If you want to make a reply about my personality instead of about what this thread is about, don't clutter this thread, post over here instead.

Why this might be a better idea than something of a weaker or smaller diameter material:
Sometimes we discard sections of the eight-foot or ten-foot 1-inch diameter stock when we get home because we found that it has a bend near the end form torque applied by the coupling, particularly after big high velocity wind and dust events. This could be worse if you use full size tarps for siding instead of shade. Once the end is bent, you'll need more than $8 to have someone bend it back. So, we just buy another one. If you have access to a heavy duty tube bender, you may be able to fix one of those ends, but is it worth $8 of your time? Probably, if you have a shop and a tube-bender!

Conclusion: one-inch tube is right on the edge of sustainable. If you go smaller, you'll end up with bent tubing more often than every couple years, which is what we experience using one-inch EMT with Black Rock Shade couplings. It could be that we didn't ensure our guys were taut and we made ourselves vulnerable to torque and bending, but that is a real life scenario, too.

Yep, went to HD yesterday and 1" EMT was $10.40 a stick, 50 cent increase since June. Got the discount price of $9.89 because I bought(10 or more) 13 pieces. Maybe when we start making our own (USA) because of the tariffs it will go back down to around 5 bucks. Yeah, right.

You can apply any terms to any situation to rationalize bias or perspective.

I have a 1V dome (icosahedron) made from 10 foot 3/4" EMT sticks and 10 foot triangular shade sails. It's tradeoff between strength and something that is still light enough for 25 tubes to be strapped to the top of my car. I can easily agree that for a square corner structure, 3/4" would be too flimsy. For this specific purpose, it's doing fine. This size of 1V dome can't be climbed otherwise the midpoints would be too weak. But we can still tie a rope to the top vertex and support the weight of two campmates with no noticeable sagging.

Newbie (to eplaya) here. I’ve been tasked with designing a new shade structure for my theme camp of approximately 40 campers, and we’ve collectively decided on a flat-top conduit shade structure approach.

After reading the various threads and posts in here about the topic, I’ve decided on using 1-3/8” top rail or conduit as well as various canopy fittings from ysbw.com.

My main question at this point is, are approximately 20’ spans between uprights doable/feasible? We’re thinking about using 10' lengths of top rail/conduit as well as 20’ x 20’ tarps for the roof, with cross canopy fittings (like these: https://www.ysbw.com/Canopy-Fitting-1-3 ... p/2430.htm) under each tarp to keep it from sagging.

For a 60’ x 100’ shade structure, this approach would mean 24 uprights total, spaced in a 20’ x 20’ grid. However, I’m concerned that those spans might be too great, and that 10’ spans (for a 10’ x 10’ grid) would be more pragmatic. However, this would drive the number of uprights from 24 to 77, which would drive up the cost significantly.

Thanks for any and all input!

(Cross-posted to the "Flat Top Shade Structure Guidance + Am I Missing Anything?" thread as well.)

My main question at this point is, are approximately 20’ spans between uprights doable/feasible? We’re thinking about using 10' lengths of top rail/conduit as well as 20’ x 20’ tarps for the roof, with cross canopy fittings

The consensus here (and elsewhere) is that 20' span won't do, so 10' spans it is (or would be, if we went with that approach).

I designed a CAD model of the proposed shade structure, so am aware of how many pieces of everything would be required to build it. That's accompanied by a spreadsheet with all the necessary formulas to automate calculations, so am also aware of how much all of that would cost, as well as weigh. We (the core team) are aware of all of that, and the discussion thus far has centered around building in the cost of a new shade structure into 2019 camp fees.

However, at this point I'm more inclined to tell our campers to go fuck themselves and that they're responsible for their own shade. Radical self-reliance and all that.

However, at this point I'm more inclined to tell our campers to go fuck themselves and that they're responsible for their own shade. Radical self-reliance and all that.

Now I like the radical language there! This guy gets it!

Since you appear to gave some craft about you, maybe look at alternatives in the tensile structures arena, where your shade cloth is a stressed member and you can go vast spans at the expense of strong anchoring.

A simple A-frame 20’ deep can be built with 5 pieces of conduit and strong shade cloth.

Add 5 more sticks and it scales in width by whatever amount of tension you can maintain horizontally...

Sorry to drift the thread but I've had some success using shade that is not based on conduit. I've only ever used 8 foot 2x2 lumber. 2016 I used two pieces and a tarp. It worked okay. 2017 I made an icosahedron draped with tarps and camo. It was a lot of pieces for a small shade. 2018 I made a freeform stretch tent and it was amazing. I sewed together a bunch of cheapo stretchy fabric with a zigzag stitch, tennis balls for anchor points and paracord on the fabric, about 16 lag bolts, about 9 pieces of 8 foot 2x2 lumber topped with turbans of bike inner tube to protect the fabric. The whole thing was practical, cheap, easy, fast, strong, aesthetically pleasing.